Cobalt Doped Iron Based Perovskite Catalysts for Efficient Reduction of Nitrate to Ammonia

Abstract

Electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NO₃RR) has received universal attention to synthesize value-added ammonia, which requires high-efficiency catalysts to reduce the reaction barrier. Herein, cobalt doped SrFeO₃ nanofibers (SCFO) with abundant oxygen vacancies via electrospinning technique is proposed to convert nitrate to ammonia. Such catalyst achieves an optimum Faradaic efficiency of 81.5 % and a high NH₃ yield of 16.1 mg h⁻¹ mg⁻¹_cat. in a 0.1 M PBS + 0.1 M NaNO₃ solution at −0.9 V reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Moreover, the in-situ electrochemical test and DFT calculations confirm the potential-determining step (PDS) for SCFO is *NO−*N with an energy barrier of only 1.28 eV.